Oscar Pistorius arrested after death of his girlfriend: profile of a Paralympic star

Oscar Pistorius – whose girlfriend has been found shot dead at his home this
morning – was born in Johannesburg, the second of three children, with a
congenital condition which meant that both calf bones were missing.

Pistorius’s parents Henke and Sheila considered reconstructive surgery and after consulting several experts around the world, took the decision to have their son's legs amputated at the knee at 11 months old.

His first pair of artificial legs were made when he was 17 months old.

Aged seven, at Constantia Kloof Primary School, he was competing in football matches.

By the age of 13, he was at Pretoria High School for Boys, one of 350 boarders.

He thrived in the school’s competitive sporting environment. He was a keen cricketer and played water polo for the Northern States.

He was selected for the state tennis team aged 11, and he excelled at rugby, playing in the school’s third XV.

Pistorius recalled an incident from his school days in an interview with me in The Daily Telegraph last year. It was in his school dormitory, where 24 boys slept in steel-framed beds.

Pistorius was often on the receiving end of pranks. He would often wake to find what he calls his ‘day legs’ missing. Hunting for them around the boarding house became a regular chore.

“One night while I was asleep," he recalled, "the boys hid my legs, then poured lighter fluid on my bed and on my locker and set it on fire.

“They woke me up and told me the building was burning down. I was terrified. Everyone was running out the door and I remember seeing these flames around my sides and thought I was going to burn.

"Then I couldn’t find my prosthetic legs and started really panicking. But then the flames started to die down and the guys came back in, laughing. It was a pretty disgusting practical joke, but it was just part of the sense of humour of the place."

When he was 15, his mother died following an allergic reaction to hospital treatment for suspected malaria. He has her birth date tattooed on his arm. Her last letter to him is something he often quotes.

“She said 'train, don’t strain", because I used to like going to the gym and running till I was exhausted. She said I should never compare myself to others as there will always be people of greater and lesser ability. She said I should always be content and not push myself.”

Pistorius turned to athletics in 2003 following a rugby injury, sprinting as part of his rehabilitation.

Encouraged by his instructors, he entered the South African disabled championships, from which he was immediately selected for the Athens Paralympic Games the following year.

The 17-year-old won gold in the T44 – an event for single and double leg amputees – 200 metres – in a world record time of 21.97 secs – and bronze in the 100 metres.

“I’m not disabled, I just don’t have any legs,” he has always asserted.

Since then the 26-year-old South African, known as ‘Blade Runner’, has become one of the most recognisable athletes on the planet.

He races wearing carbon fibre prosthetic blades.

Pistorius became the first double amputee to run in the Olympics and reached the 400 semi-finals at London 2012.

He has become a standard bearer for the Paralympic movement, championing the cause and being outspoken in its defence.

Impairment aside, Pistorius has led a far from charmed life. In 2009, a speedboat he was steering on a river in South Africa hit a submerged pier as he was returning home from a day trip with friends.

Knocked unconscious as he was thrown across the boat, he suffered severe facial damage and head injuries, fracturing his skull, smashing an orbital socket, breaking his nose, jaw and several ribs. He spent a week on an emergency ward, his face requiring reconstructive surgery.

A popular figure in the movement, he had become one of the first Paralympic millionaires, with an agent, manager, and corporate sponsors. He has travelled the globe competing in events.

In recent years, he has spent the athletics season moving from country to country in Europe, competing and taking part in public-speaking and corporate engagements.

In numerous interviews with me over the last nine years, the athlete has always insisted that his driving force has been to run as fast as possible, and inspire as many people as possible.

His feats have brought him to be known as ‘the fastest man on no legs’.

He will now forever be remembered as the athlete accused of shooting dead his girlfriend.

Pistorius lives in a house he built two years ago on a private estate on the outskirts of Pretoria. He lives alone, with three dogs – Capone, a Jack Russell terrier, Silo, an American Pitbull, and Enzo, a Bull Terrier.

Three days ago, Pistorius tweeted that it was a month before his first race of the season, and he was ready to go.

He tweeted four days ago: “Finished watching the 8pm movie on @mnetmovies to end the weekend but the house is way to quiet without @MartynRooney! #homealoneblues”

It appears that the British 400m runner had been staying at his home in Pretoria.